After having been announced as a streaming series at Disney’s 2020 Investor Day presentation, it was recently revealed that the Don Cheadle vehicle Armor Wars was changing gears and being developed as a feature film. Other than the idea that the events of Armor Wars will spin out of the 2023 streaming series Secret Invasion, Marvel Studios hasn’t let much slip about what to expect from the project. However, in an interview with Matt Belloni, Marvel Studios Executive Producer and Parliament member Nate Moore gave some insight into how its development involved and what fans can expect.
First and foremost, Moore made it clear that the series became “too big” of a project for the streaming service.
“Yeah, I mean in that case, there were some great ideas that were coming out for that show but that, to be quite honest, felt too big for that show.”
Nate Moore
When asked if “too big” referred to budget constraints or the scope of the story, Moore elaborated.
Kind of both. Kind of conceptually and from a… Our Disney+ shows are awesome and we love them, but the budgets are not the same as the features, that’s not secret. And when you’re talking about a show that wants to be about seeing all the cool armors, and Don Cheadle interacting with all these armors, and the legacy of Tony Stark, that became cost-prohibitive to do as a show.
Nate Moore
Moore went on to explain that the large role Armor Wars is set to play in the future of the MCU also weighed heavily into the decision to shift the story to the big screen.
And we realized as a feature, not only can we get into some of the beautiful imagery that is from publishing and there’s certainly an Armor Wars run, but also there’s ways then to leverage the ideas of that movie that affect other movies down the line. So it becomes a multiplication really of, once you figure out what is cool about something…
Nate Moore
Given Marvel Studios’ theatrical slate is pretty full for the next several years, it’s not clear exactly when Armor Wars will make its way onto it, though with the story seeming to serve as a follow-up to Secret Invasion and a bridge to projects beyond it, it would seem Marvel Studios wouldn’t want to wait too long.
Quentin Tarantino is not a big fan of modern superhero films. The acclaimed director recently told the Los Angeles times he’s never helmed one because he’s “not a hired hand” and while “the writing’s not quite on the wall yet”, he believes the fascination with superhero films will eventually fade similar to when audiences tired of big-budget musical productions in the 1960s. Films like 1961’s West Side Story and 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night thrilled audiences for the better part of a decade before interest waned and filmmakers were forced to look elsewhere. Tarantino stated that he and other modern filmmakers “can’t wait for the day they can say that about superhero movies.”
Of course, rather than making reporters ask Tarantino fewer questions about the potential for him to step behind the camera for a superhero flick, his comments inspired more…and somewhat surprisingly, Tarantino had an answer at the ready. In an interview with Variety, Tarantino revealed that were he to have his choice of Marvel IPs to bring to the big screen, it would be a classic book that inspired his 2009 film Inglorious Basterds.
In a 2009 interview with MTV, Tarantino shared that the 1963 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby series Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes was an inspiration for the main crew of Inglorious Basterds.
“[The Basterds] are a kind of comic book. A big influence on the Basterds was Marvel Comics’ ‘Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.’ That was definitely an influence on that flick.
Quentin Tarantino
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes ran for nearly 20 years and saw 167 issues published about the adventures of Nick Fury and his ragtag team that included Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Izzy Cohen, Jim Morita and more. A version of the team, lead by Dugan and featuring many of those listed, was featured in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger. While fans probably shouldn’t hold their breath, the though of Tarantino revisiting that team and some of their unseen adventures in World War II is titilating.
One of the money shots of the marketing footage for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever showed the descent of Namor onto his massive, underwater throne. Namor has always been a big throne guy in the comics, but the crew on Wakanda Forever really upped the ante in adapting the Sub-Mariner and his throne room for the MCU, having Namor seated in the jaws of an ancient beast! Fans have been buzzing about the set piece since first seeing it, speculating on just what sort of creature the jaws belonged to and now they have their answer.
Production Designer Hannah Beachler, who won an Academy Award for her work on Black Panther, returned to work on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and took to Twitter recently to detail some of the fascinating features from some of the most breathtaking sets from the film including Namor’s throne.
Namor's throne seat. A Magalodon jaw with Jade Teeth. The Hieroglyph carved in the bone reads, "This Jade Tooth Bites." I thought it was charming and dangerous like Namor. The piece was 12 feet tall by 10 feet wide. It was BIG! pic.twitter.com/lFypY6qRIH
As fans believed, Namor’s throne was indeed created from the jaws of a Megalodon. The extinct Megalodon is the largest species of shark to have ever lived. Recent estimates indicate the average Megalodon was likely 34 feet long (Great Whites average 20 feet, for comparison) with teeth about 7 inches long! The production design team did their homework not only in depicting the size of the jaws but also in keying in on the fact that more than a quarter of the total number of Megalodon fossils have been found around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
Given the details of the piece, including the description carved into the lower jaw, it would be a shame if it weren’t seen again soon in the MCU!
There’s been a lot of debate on the success of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at the box office, mostly due to it ending up lower than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Many believed this might be the sign that Marvel won’t have a billion hit this year, but the box office is quite fiscal and there are many more elements at play. All eyes are currently on its second weekend to see how the film holds with a $181M opening weekend, especially after the previous two Marvel Studios releases have hit some sharp drops.
As of now, it seems that predictions have the film opening to $72M with upwards of $80M also a possibility. Any drop between 55% to 60% would be seen as a major win and a great showcase of that A CinemaScore the film scored in comparison to other Marvel titles of the year. The pandemic hasn’t been kind to most releases and with only a few exceptions really catapulting beyond expectations, mostly Top Gun: Maverick, Marvel has been the most dominant sure-fire opening scorer at the box office.
The film did end up going lower on Monday than even Thor: Love and Thunder as it pulled in $11M but did tick up to $12.6M on Tuesday. Yet, the film also isn’t a summer release like the previous two Marvel films which makes a world of difference when it comes to its performance during the week. Plus, it’s a much longer film than previous entries which also means fewer available screenings per day playing a key factor in its performance. So, it’s still hard to say how the weekend goes but predictions have been difficult even s the pandemic slowed down, as we’re seeing more variation in how films perform. Even with that, it’s likely to reach $400M worldwide in no time.
The original Black Panther had a very impressive 44.7% decline and it’s unclear to say this film could do the same. It doesn’t have the coveted A+ CinemaScore its previous iteration had and it also had a smaller opening, not too surprising given the challenges this film had to face and the new release slot. It’s only the seventh film to pass $200M domestically and that is definitely a good sign for Marvel Studios, as it pushed Disney passed $3B total gross for the year, beating last year. With little competition until Avatar: The Way of Water in mid-December, the film could have a chance at proving its legs to at least close in on a billion. If predictions are right, it has a decent chance but anything can change once the weekend rolls around.
With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel Studios has completed its theatrical slate for Phase 4 which began when Black Widow was released in July 2021 after a long wait due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With Phase 4’s films all now available for consumption, Team MM thought there was no time like the present to rank them.
Hunter Radesi
1 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2 Spider-Man: No Way Home 3 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 4 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 5 Eternals 6 Thor: Love and Thunder 7 Black Widow
Anthony Canton III
1 Spider-Man No Way Home 2 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 3 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 4 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 5 Thor: Love And Thunder 6 Black Widow 7 Eternals
Charles Murphy
1 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2 Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings 3 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 4 Spider-Man: No Way Home 5 Eternals 6 Black Widow 7 Thor: Love and Thunder
João Pinto
1 Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings 2 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 3 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 4 Spider-Man: No Way Home 5 Black Widow 6 Eternals 7 Thor: Love and Thunder
Michael T. Ford III
1 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2 Spider-Man: No Way Home 3 Black Widow 4 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 5 Eternals 6 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 7 Thor: Love and Thunder
Jared Kirschenbaum
1 Spider-Man: No Way Home 2 Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings 3 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 4 Black Widow 5 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 6 Thor: Love and Thunder 7 Eternals
Dalbin Osorio
1 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2 Spider-Man: No Way Home 3 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 4 Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings 5 Eternals 6 Black Widow 7 Thor: Love and Thunder
Torbjorn Frazier
1 Spider-Man: No Way Home 2 Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings 3Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 4 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 5 Thor: Love and Thunder 6 Eternals 7 Black Widow
Spider-Man: No Way Home: It was the worst-kept secret in Hollywood about what this film was going to be, and yet No Way Home still provides the best live-action cinematic experience of Spider-Man. It has a truly epic scope, successfully pays off (and improves) films outside of the studio that made it, and even still is a strong personal story for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. No Way Home is the largest success of Phase Four.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: While other films on this list are built upon the legacies of the past, Shang-Chi is the strongest film in Phase Four based on its own individual merits. The core four of the cast all bring their best, Destin Daniel Cretton established himself as a marquee director of the future, and the film has left audiences with a great future to look forward to.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Trying to rank a film like Wakanda Forever feels futile and plays into the argument of why rankings can be arbitrary and reductive. Even still, Ryan Coogler adeptly manages the insurmountable task of having to manage the grief of Chadwick Boseman’s death and turn it into this beautiful exploration of grief and loss. It continues the strong desire for Wakanda to play a major role in the MCU.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Sam Raimi’s return to superheroics was a strong success in my eyes. It is much closer to the imaginative experience that Doctor Strange should bring to the big screen with his magic and dimension-hopping. As well, it’s a film where I found the fast pacing to be more of a benefit here as opposed to Love and Thunder. And to boot, I appreciated all the narrative themes and allowing Benedict Cumberbatch’s to be more quiet and nuanced than most MCU protagonists.
Thor: Love and Thunder: This film is a perfectly fine adventure into the world of New Asgard and the power dynamics of the Thors. Natalie Portman is fantastic in her return to the role of Jane Foster aka Mighty Thor. For me, the biggest issue is the film being too fast-paced and really needing another 10-15 minutes to slow down.
Eternals: While I completely understand the issues some have with this film, I am someone who absolutely adored Eternals. The time spent marinating on the human experience and the concept of family resonated in an unexpectedly fantastic way. Though the film’s pedestrian attempts at the superheroic tropes do hold it back in these rankings.
Black Widow: It was a refreshing experience watching this film as the first MCU film released post-pandemic and a perfectly passable romp of a spy film. However, it still feels like it would’ve been much better served in Phase Three and doesn’t move the needle for the future beyond Florence Pugh’s iconic Yelena Belova.
Average Ranking
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Spider-Man: No Way Home Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Black Widow Eternals Thor: Love and Thunder
1.8 2.1 2.8 3.9 5.5 5.8 6.2
Power Ranking
Murphy’s Multiverse Power Rankings are calculated by assigning point values for rankings. In this instance, a film received 7 points for being ranked #1, 6 points for being ranked #2 and so on down to 1 point for being ranked #7.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Spider-Man: No Way Home Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Black Widow Eternals Thor: Love and Thunder
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has made quite the splash at the international box office and is a strong contender to potentially pass a billion with some powerful word-of-mouth pushing the project forward. There’s, however, one part that could end up dragging its growth down in the form of the current Disney plan setting each new release to be available on Disney+ within 45 days. Yet, it seems that Wakanda Forever may move away from that current trend.
While reporting the current box office trends, Deadline shares some details on what we can expect from its theatrical run. They point out that the film isn’t set to release ahead of the holidays, which has been a common move for Disney to get some more momentum for its subscriber growth ahead of the holiday season. Encanto dropped quite quickly on the platform and it seems they have the same plan with Stranger World, which is set to release on November 23rd. Even Eternals found its way shortly after the year started in January.
Yet, they are opting to potentially not do the same with Wakanda Forever. As such, they may be starting to move away from the 45-day release window that has been set and adapt from film to film. Top Gun: Maverick proved that a longer release window can truly carry a film passed the billion and with some strong word-of-mouth, it would be a shame if Disney got in the way of its own success. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if they generally start moving away from that and give these films more time to breathe in theaters.
There’s been a lot of rumors surrounding Marvel Studios’ future projects. Especially the upcoming adaptation of Secret Invasion has been the focus given its topic of exploring a world infiltrated by the Skrull. A story exploring agents trying to figure out if the person next to them can be trusted opens up many possibilities, especially with a project focused on the spy aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Of course, when spies are involved it becomes a hot topic if it also means many more SHIELD agents from the comics could make an appearance. Not just that but also the possibility of seeing actors return from the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., especially Chloe Bennet who played the Marvel character of Daisy Johnson or better known as Quake. Rumors went wild on her potential return to the franchise and a new post may have reignited just that.
Bennet has taken to her Instagram account and shared a rather simple group of photos. Yet, she seemingly put some daisies in her shoe, which has led to many in the comments believing that she may be subtlety hinting at her potential return to the franchise.
Of course, it’s not really a confirmation of any kind but it’s definitely a fun little tease by the actress even if it’s simply to pay tribute to the role she played during the Marvel TV era. Whatever may come from it, it definitely may spark some fun in once again revisiting the series and theorizing on how she might arrive in the MCU, which could be similar to how they handled Charlie Cox‘s return as Daredevil.
The moment Marvel Studios unveiled plans for Avengers: Secret Wars, it felt like anything suddenly became possible. The Multiverse Saga was upon us and while we only got a glimpse in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, something that seems entirely on purpose in retrospect to build up what is yet to come, it does seem like the perfect way to slowly bring back some iconic stars from Marvel’s cinematic and TV history.
One of the most hopeful returns has been some of the 20th Century Fox actors, especially from the X-Men franchise. Luckily, it seems that one actor is definitely on board as Kelsey Grammer, who once played Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and gave us quite an iconic incarnation ith very little time on screen. Not only does he want to return but he also makes an ultimatum in an interview with MovieWeb.
If they don’t ask me to return to the role of Beast, I’ll never go to Disneyland again. I’d love for them to do that. I want to do that.
Kelsey Grammer
There’s the possibility that we see this actor return to the role even before Secret Wars; if Marvel Studios even ends up approaching him. Hugh Jackman is already confirmed to take on the role of Wolverine once more in the upcoming Deadpool threequel and they could also reintroduce some familiar faces from the original X-Men franchise. So, we’ll see if he might end up having a role after all.
If you haven’t seen Black Panther: Wakanda Forever yet, only continue at your own risk. The following article contains spoilers on major plot points of the sequel.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ended Phase 4 by further exploring the concept of grief, but with some real-world thrown into the mix. Director Ryan Coogler and his crew used the film to work through their own challenges after the loss of Chadwick Boseman, which leads to a powerful film reflecting back on the legacy he leaves. In the middle of it all, Angela Bassett offered a powerful performance as Queen Ramonda. In an interview with IndieWire, she highlighted what it was like taking on the role and returning as the character and how Coogler supported the cast throughout production.
He’s extremely clear on the story and what he’s doing, but the way he carries himself around the cast and the crew. It’s so collaborative. He’s so self-effacing. That impostor syndrome that we’re feeling or whatever, he will just say it out loud. ‘I don’t know about these words. Are you OK with them?’ And he really invites you to have your say, be a part, which is wonderful. He doesn’t straightjacket you.
Angela Bassett
Of course, the big move in this film was her death at the hands of Tenoch Huerta‘s Namor. A powerplay to showcase his power before Wakanda and especially Letitia Wright‘s Shuri. In a story already fighting through the loss of a character, it seemed harsh to add one more to the list, but Bassett shared how the Black Panther director convinced her of taking the story down this route.
I objected. Yeah, I was like, ‘Ryan, what are you doing? Why? You will rue the day! You will rue the demise of [Ramonda]. People are gonna be so upset. He was like, ‘Angela, I know, I know, but look, to die is not really to die in this world. It doesn’t really have to mean that.’
Angela Bassett
It definitely was shocking and added to the emotional gut punch that was Wakanda Forever. Shuri’s character has gone through a lot in this film. So, it just added even more weight to the events that transpired. Still, it almost seems like we could expect Bassett to potentially return in the MCU’s future if that is how Coogler sold her on the story decision.
Marvel Studios has just left Phase 4 behind and is getting ready for the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After going through its grief phase, it’s time to see what a new kind of super team may bring to the table. While the Avengers‘ next two entries aren’t set for 2025 and 2026, we’ll get a very different kind of team-up to wrap up Phase 5, the Thunderbolts.
Outside of a look at the roster, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the project. Perhaps Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is setting up some story points, we don’t know what will force the hands of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to form such a ragtag team. David Harbour agrees and gets a chance to sit down with ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast while promoting Violent Night, where he got an opportunity to tease the newly formed group of “losers” of the MCU.
We’re… like, losers, which I like. We’re like, you know, the losers. And I think it’s fun to watch us just mess everything up. I think that’s the spectrum. I think it’s very funny, but there’s also a lot of pathos in that. There’s a lot of drama in a bunch of people that just keep getting their lives wrong and, because of character flaws, keep messing things up. And nobody gives them the respect that they do to Captain America and Iron Man, very capable people. So there’s a lot to draw on there. There’s a lot of movie there that’ll be fun.
David Harbour
It’s definitely a fun way to introduce the team, but it’s not the first time that Marvel took this approach. James Gunn introduced the world to the Guardians of the Galaxy as a bunch of “a-holes” that don’t usually belong together. Now that we have a group of anti-heroes working together, it does seem like their personalities are going to clash quite a bit throughout the film’s runtime.
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